The Thing About Airports
by manie88
Summary: Craig/Ellie. Ellie's P.O.V. at the end of 'Degrassi Goes Hollywood', during the airport scene. A brief recap of the Craig/Ellie relationship with references to 'What It Feels Like to be a Ghost.' Slightly AU towards the end.


**The Thing about Airports**

So, I have this way of making things awkward.

But it's an awkward situation, I suppose, so the blame can't entirely be placed on me here. Seeing as he's being pretty awkward himself.

He purses his lips into an uncomfortably tight smile and shrugs a little. His wide, forlorn, brown eyes with their homeless puppy stare make me desperately want to throw him whatever the emotional equivalent to a doggy treat might be.

Instead, I mumble something about how I should probably just go. "Security can take a while," I add, as a feeble excuse to not be standing here, in this glittering place of acute heartbreak and lingering humiliation. What exactly is it about airports that make them the ideal setting for the whims of heightened emotional frenzy? Tears of tragic goodbyes, kisses of unequivocal passion, etc. and the like. Throw in a body of water and about half a bottle of pomegranate Smirnoff and I could have had my most recent, quasi-suicidal breakdown right here.

Oh, yes. _That._

Okay, so… maybe it is my fault this is all so damn awkward. What can a guy really say to you after he's rescued you, both physically and emotionally? Of course this will be an uncomfortable situation. And just to make this a really ha-ha kind of funny; that little embarrassing act of desperation also happened to be preceded by me (again) declaring that my feelings for him shamelessly breached the confines of a platonic friendship to his (again) resounding answer of "Uh… I just wanna be friends."

Did I mention that this has happened before?

Yes, kids. I have managed to completely misinterpret all his affectionate little mannerisms and gestures of friendship as grand romantic overtures a handful of times.

This time, it wasn't just the hot girl in high school either that I was overlooked for—it was an actual, honest to God, model. Yeah, seriously. What a fun way to kick me while I'm down! She was also in a towel and about a billion times hotter than me, so that helped.

Are we all caught up here? How much more background do we need? (Better yet, how much more can we stand.)

Let's see… we've covered all the times the kid has rejected me. Well there was this one time last year when finally, for the first time he reciprocated every glowingly epic romantic feeling I had for him; he looked at me with that fervent, blazing intensity to his eyes, a sheen of cold sweat along his skin. Clutching me desperately, he bit his lower lip, he grinned his adorable little grin and rested his forehead against mine. He sincerely, purely and heartrendingly told me that he loved me.

Then he asked me to please give his coke back.

I still can't sufficiently describe how that felt to me, then. It was sort of the pinnacle of every single time I felt that he'd lead me on, only to ultimately disappoint me. Except that there was a certain deliberate cruelty about it. As if he'd really meant it. Of course, I know that wasn't the case; it wasn't him, it was the addiction.

But still.

Before this little L.A. escape, the last time I saw him was also at an airport. (Seriously, all the drama goes down here.) I'd arranged for him to go stay with his adopted father, who I assumed would probably help set him up in rehab.

He had that sweet, earnest look spilled across his features. He was about to insist that he meant what he said. I felt a certain kind of rage swell up in my throat and beneath my eyelids, as if I'd be crying bullets and they'd all be aimed straight into his chest. I asked him to stop before I let myself get all caught up whatever sugary little thing he was about to say about us and about how maybe when he got out of rehab…

No. A definitive, absolute, unequivocal kind of, no, I thought. At the time I was really afraid that there would never be an "us" again, not even as friends.

But he did it again to me in L.A. He made me forgive him with his sweet, all-encompassing smile, and then he just made me fall in love with him again.

Oh, well. What're you gonna do?

I have a family crisis I need to be dealing with and he has a model to go back to anyway.

"Weeell"

Why did I draw out the word like that? It sounded like a bad Southern accent. God, I'm a dork.

"I should go"

"Um… yeah. Right." He pauses, then gulps. He looks nervous. He's probably worried I'll have another breakdown on the plane. I'd tell him that the little single-serving bottles of liquor they offer on the plane are too tiny for that but I don't think he'd find it too funny right about now.

"Visit me again? Soon?" he adds, pleadingly.

"Yeah, uh. Sure… and if you're back home…. Well, I'm there too. So say, 'hey'"

He chuckles slightly. "Yeah, I'll be sure to do that."

I turn kind of abruptly and start to walk away when something makes me want to look at him one last time. And OMD's "If You Leave" is playing in the background. Just kidding… I just thought I'd add to the cliché.

And there he is, still standing in the same spot. His head is cocked slightly to the side and there's a slow smile spreading across his face. I don't realize that it's widening as I get closer to him. I don't even realize that I've begun to walk back towards him. It's a full force grin by the time I get there.

"Forget something?"

And this is where I choke. "Uh… yeah. A hug, Stupid."

His smile falters a little bit. He nods slightly and in our tradition of awkwardness we share an uncomfortable embrace. We begin to pull away when abruptly, I feel his arms grasp onto me with a strength I didn't realize his sensitive, rocker boy physique had.

"I'm not doing this."

"Doing what? Letting me breathe?" I muffle out, against his chest. (Side note: he smells amazing.)

He shifts a little so I can raise my head to face him but still keep his arms fastened around my body. "No, I'm not letting you go"

"Craig…"

"I don't mean that in the literal sense… I know you have to go see your dad… I just mean in the figurative, emotional sense of me not letting you get on that plane until you know that you're my girl, and that I love you and that I love you so much and that I've loved you for as long as I can remember knowing you, and that I've wasted too much time not having realized it and then I wasted even more time after I'd realized it because I was too stupid, too inarticulate and too caught up in things that weren't relevant and people that weren't important."

He stopped and took a breath, slowly loosening his grip and stepping back. "You're the only thing that's important."

I kind of just stand there, speechless.

"Ellie, say something." He asks, nervously. "Look, if you give me the chance, I promise to stop being the guy that always lets you dow—"

This isn't a sentence worth finishing anymore. He's already stopped being that guy. And besides… I'm already kissing him.

A kiss of unequivocal passion, fit for such a setting as an airport.


End file.
